The Sunday News
CULTURE Fund of Zimbabwe Trust has awarded Culture Impacts grants worth over $1 million to 41 projects within the arts and culture sector countrywide amid revelations that some renowned artistes were left out for reasons they believed are not clear.
Posting on her twitter account award-winning novelist and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga said the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe turned down her application for publication of the 3rd volume in the Nervous Conditions trilogy.
“Culture Fund doesn’t realise that by doing me down it does down Zim artists. With support I could do so much for Zim artists & create jobs,” Dangarembga posted.
However, in a statement, Culture Fund of Zimbabwe said the trust envisioned an inclusive society characterised by improved well-being for all, harnessing resources for the creative sector in order to make impact on the broader Zimbabwean society by engaging the transformative power of arts and culture.
“The Fund facilitates the advancement of a sustainable and vibrant culture in Zimbabwe that contributes to broad participation by Zimbabweans in their cultural life and development of their country. It contributes to cultural and economic growth through strategic partnerships and programmes with among others Government, local authorities, business and international funding organisations.
“In its programming Culture Fund endorses good art as a medium for stimulating development activities that yield measurable results and leave traceable footprints benefiting Zimbabweans,” read the statement.
In the new Culture Impacts programme, Culture Fund partnered with the Swedish government through the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida), Danish government through the Danish International Development Agency (Danida) and the European Union (EU) Delegation in Harare.
“This programme will foster social cohesion, peace and poverty reduction among Zimbabwean communities. It will strengthen the broad participation by Zimbabweans in all spheres of society through platforms that foster free expression; advance gender equality; promote, assert and defend human, cultural and socio-economic rights within communities,” read the statement.
The statement further read that the fund runs a transparent grant application process targeting Zimbabweans and Zimbabwean residents.
“Project proposals were assessed for their ability to effectively address the Culture Impacts objectives within the implementation period. The overwhelming response to the call saw over 500 project proposals requesting more than 10 times the total available funds for the programme. The Culture Fund board has awarded grants worth just over $1 million invested in 41 projects,” the statement read.
Some applicants of the grant were not successful owing to a number of reasons such as, proposals submitted out of programme scope, proposals deemed more suitable for other funding streams, previously supported grantees whose projects were poorly implemented, projects whose outcomes for Culture Impacts were ambiguous and applications whose budgets were unrealistic to the call.
“Infrastructure development project applications with high risk of non-completion, project proposals lacking requisite information,” were part of reasons for unsuccessful applications according to the statement.
